Korean engineering students' and professors' attitudes toward English-medium instruction (EMI) policies

Abstract

Heath (1977) defined language ideologies as “self-evident ideas and objectives a group holds concerning roles of language in the social experiences of members as they contribute to the expression of the group.” Razfar (2005) contended that language ideologies are not limited to ideas but include language practices where our ideas are realized. According to Tollefson and Yamagami (2012), the study of language ideologies attempts to reveal concealed thoughts and ideas that students and teachers hold and to elucidate what motivates their actions. It has been a decade since Korean universities actively adopted EMI policies, financially supported by the Korean government. Korean domestic newspapers' university ranking systems have also accelerated Korean universities' expansion of EMI. Engineering schools have been leading the phenomenon of EMI expansion among Korean universities. This study examines the EMI policies of a Korean engineering school and their students' and professors' attitudes toward the policies. The school, arguably the most well-regarded university in Korea, has been leading the development of EMI among Korean universities. More specifically, the study examines how EMI policies were introduced to the school and what kinds of changes they have undergone over the years through document analysis of various types of literature, including school documents, Internet sources, and newspaper articles. It also examines both graduate and undergraduate students' and professors' attitudes toward the school's EMI policies and classes through questionnaire and interview surveys. The survey results reveal that the students and professors held highly critical views of the school's EMI policies and classes, while the professors were more positive about the impact of EMI classes on their students. The study attempts to discuss benefits and disadvantages of EMI for English as a foreign language (EFL) engineering students from the perspectives of students and professors and concludes by making recommendations for the directions that engineering schools in an EFL environment should take in implementing EMI policies.